It seems like we’ve stumbled into summer around here.
Temperatures in Jackson Hole lately have been around 70 and
daily sunshine is melting away our snowpack. While rivers in
the region remain high, there are certainly plenty of fishy
options.

First evenin’ fish of the summer! This beautiful
brown trout inspected my size 6 Sofa Pillow three times before
deciding to take the tiny Copper John dropper…

For the next month and a half (well really all
season), Yellowstone National Park is a great place to
go fly fishing. Waters in the southwestern part of the park
(Firehole, Madison, Lewis, Gibbon, Nez Perce) all fish best this
time of year, providing anglers with good hatches of PMDs and
caddis. The Firehole canyon also gets a salmonfly hatch at the
end of the month. If you’re into casting BIG dry flies, this can
be a fun place to be. Area lakes are also fishing well around
the valley. Most smaller, hike-in lakes below 8,000 feet are
free of ice and crystal clear. These are fun to spend a day at;
pack your lunch, a fly rod and do a little exploring. Jamie and I
hiked into Bearpaw lake in the Tetons the other afternoon.
Fish were active, but so were the mosquitos!

After a long hike in to this fantastic Yellowstone
cutthroat fishery, I found half the lake ice free. Quickly rigging
up a rod, I landed a nice bright cutt. Unfortunately storms
rolled in with high winds, snow and sleet, forcing a hasty
retreat.

The Grizzlies bears are out and about. This guy was
feeding on grass along Togwotee pass..

We’re headed out this afternoon to the fishing cabin in
Dubois to get it ready for summer guests. Also planning on
checking some trout waters… More to come…

Many know that Lake trout are predatory, feeding on smaller
fish as well as many other things. My unscientific study
confirmed this the other day when I cleaned a Laker for dinner.
It seems this time of year smaller fish and leeches make up a
good portion of their diet. So for all of you getting out this
upcoming weekend to cast at cruising lakers, it might be a good
idea to fish white/blue/olive baitfish patterns and simple leech
patterns…

and yes, the grilled Lake trout was delicious

Turns out, simple CAN be better. A few days back I ran
over to Dubois to do a little preseason work on the cabin.
Since the weather was lousy and I was planning to only spend
a night, I didn’t take my fishing gear with me. Once there
though I started thinking about fishing; turns out the weather
wasn’t quite as bad as predicted and Jamie told me to stay
and she’d come over with some friends at the end of the
week. With an unexpected free day, thinking
about fishing turned to going fishing. The only
problem was that my gear was at home. Fortunately I
remembered having a 4wt bamboo rod at the cabin as well as
a cheap reel with embarrassingly old fly line on it. Combine
those with one fly box of random patterns and a few spools of
tippet, and I was in business!

So off I drove, determined to make the most of my day.
To make a long story short, the wind was better than expected
and I found fish rising occasionally to emerging midges. For
the better part of the morning and early afternoon I had a
blast trying to control angry brown trout with my uber-slow,
soft tipped 4 wt rod.